Should the Redskins sign Colin Kaepernick?

If you don’t follow the NFL, the Skins’ regular starting QB, Alex Smith, is out for the season with a broken fibula. The back-up, Colt McCoy, started last night’s game against the Eagles — only to suffer a season-ending injury when he, er, broke his fibula. They had to send in third-stringer Mark Sanchez, a former Jet who didn’t play at all last season.

Do you have any idea how desperate and pitiful a team must be to start a Jets cast-off at quarterback, of all positions?

They’re now down to basically pulling people out of the stands to play QB — unless they decide to sign the biggest-name free-agent quarterback out there, a man who’s suing the NFL right now because he has a notion that teams have colluded to blackball him over his insistence on kneeling during the national anthem. Passing over Kaepernick in order to have one of the concession-stand guys quarterback the team would seem a little collusion-y, wouldn’t it?

Nonetheless it might happen, per coach Jay Gruden:

Jay Gruden on Colin Kaepernick: “He’s been talked about and discussed but we will probably go a different direction.”

It’s “strictly football” reasons that have led the team to overlook Kaepernick, said Gruden, unconvincingly. Kaepernick led the 49ers to the Super Bowl a few years ago and then to the NFC Championship Game the year after; he wouldn’t be the same player now as he was at his peak but there’s potential upside. This would be an opportune moment to reintroduce him to the league, too. The anthem controversy has mostly passed and TV ratings are up thanks to new stars like Patrick Mahomes and Jared Goff. The Redskins are still in playoff contention in their division, a game behind Dallas, but in dire straits given their quarterback situation. If Kaepernick won a few games, any political critics in the Washington fan base would learn to forgive quickly. And Washington’s fan base probably has fewer critics of him than many other teams’ would. It’s one of the most liberal jurisdictions in the country.

Here’s an intriguing idea by Clay Travis. (For the football illiterate, Dan Snyder is the owner of the Redskins.)

If Dan Snyder wanted to go from pariah to saint in an instant he could sign Colin Kaepernick to back up Mark Sanchez after Colt McCoy injury. Could also, potentially, even get away with signing Kareem Hunt to pair with Reuben Foster & say team believes in fresh starts.

Foster is a linebacker whom the team just claimed off waivers despite his history of arrests, including for domestic violence. Hunt is a star free-agent running back who was just cut by the Chiefs after video emerged of him kicking and shoving a woman. Travis’s idea would essentially allow Kaepernick to hide in a crowd if the ‘Skins signed both him and Hunt. Kneeling during the anthem is a minor controversy compared to what Hunt and Foster have done; if anyone’s apt to be a lightning-rod for criticism, it’ll (probably) be the latter. Kaepernick could concentrate on football for the most part.

Seems like a match made in heaven! Except for one thing: “As my colleagues have mentioned, there’s a good chance Kaepernick wouldn’t want to play for a team whose nickname is considered by many to be a racial slur.” That’s the only way the Kaepernick saga can and should end, I think — with Kaep finally getting an offer and rejecting it because it came from the team with the most un-woke mascot in professional sports.

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